geoengineering Flashcards
what is geoengineering?
large scale efforts to diminish climate change resulting from greenhouse gases, that ave already been released to the atmosphere.
what are the 2 types of geoengineering?
solar and carbon dioxide removal
what is solar engineering?
SRM solar radiation management. trying to reduce the amount of comate change produced by greenhouse gas concentrations. masking and raises novel global scale governance and environmental issues.
what does SRM stand for?
solar radiation management
what is carbon dioxide removal
CDR. removing it from the atmosphere. raises issues related to scaling, cost, effectiveness, and local environmental consequences.
what does CDR stand for?
carbon dioxide removal
what are the impacts of SRM methods?
solar irradiance is reduced by space-based SRM, it will reflect a certain number of energy back. clouds can also bounce it back. can also be absorbed by the atmosphere.
how much sunlight per square metre does the earth absorb?
240 W
how many rays do you need to get rid of to reduce changes in climate change?
1.7% of the rays
what would help aid more reflection back into the atmosphere?
white roofs, reflective crops, increase oceans reflectance, brightening marine clouds, atmospheric aerosols, satellites in space.
how can you increase oceans reflectance?
big floating ponds of reflective balls
what are marine clouds?
clouds where there isnt any humans, you can make then whiter.
what happened in 1816?
year without the summer in USA and northern Europe and Mediterranean.
what happened in 1815?
Mount Tambura volcano erupted. most powerful in history.
what happens to the stratospheric aerosol when there’s a volcanic eruption>
a little bit of cooling in each case. you get a big drop in solar radiation transiossion right away. however, it all dissipates and climbs back up again.
RS criteria
effectiveness, timeliness, satefy, cost.
what are stratospheric aerosols and its RS criteria?
there are very dangerous due to the RS critera. not affordable, not effective
what is surface albedo and its RS criteria?
low effectiveness, really expensive, very safe, takes a long time. would have to cover 10% of land to achieve effect
what are space-based methods and their RS criteria?
very effective, very low on affordability, very low timeliness, medium safety. this is when a refractor made on the moon of a hundred million tonnes of lunar gas wants to be put in outer space. the mesh of all threads of thin metallic disks, stacked into millions.
what is the termination effect?
the consequences of a sudden halt or failure of the geoengineering system.
what could termination effect lead to for SRM?
failure could lead to rapid warming which would be difficult to adapt to, and the climate that would’ve occurred in the absence of geoengineering
what is the sudden failure of a solar enginerring scheme cause?
extreme warming- worse off tha before.
what would happen if non-geoengineering was to be used?
warming- but gradually.
what would it cause if we deployed of such system?
viewed as an intergeneratioal transfer of the risk of abrupt termination. if we pu tit into moton, we are saying tha every generation after us has to keep it going. you cannot turn it off.
what is CO2 removal RS criteria?
too expensive, low effect, medium time, high safety.
what are the problems with carbon dioxide removal?
land use for afforestation, biomass energy with caron capture storage- problem with food production, direct CO2 air capture pumped into reservoirs underground, manufactured carbonate minerals using silicate ricks and CO2 from the air. accelerated chemical weathering of rocks changes ocean acidification- iron filings in the ocean. ocean fertilization.
how does CO2 removal affect the oceans?
change in ocean alkalinity, iron filings put into the ocean. primary producers in the ocean bloom, and when they die, sink into the deep ocean and take the carbon with them, not very effective.
